French Riviera landings

French Riviera landings, undertaken, after much Anglo-American wrangling, on 15 August 1944 by Patch's Seventh US Army formed for the task, and supported by naval and air forces of the two Mediterranean Cs-in-C, Admiral John Cunningham and Lt-General Eaker.

The operation, initially condenamed ANVIL and later DRAGOON, was originally conceived as a feint to draw off German troops during the Normandy landings (see OVERLORD), but at the Cairo conference in November 1943 (see SEXTANT) the Americans proposed a major landing in the south of France, and at the Teheran conference (see Eureka) which followed Stalin backed them (see also Grand Alliance). But when German forces were drawn away from Normandy by the Anzio landings in Italy and by the threat of a French Riviera landing, and logistics made it impossible to launch DRAGOON simultaneously with OVERLORD, Churchill and the British Chiefs of Staff argued vigorously against mounting it. They urged that, instead of depleting the forces in the Italian campaign, which were supplying nearly all DRAGOON's manpower, all available resources should be committed to making a strategic thrust—perhaps aided by an Istrian peninsula landing—from Italy into Austria. This added dimension to the threat already facing Germany from west and east would, they argued, be of more help to Eisenhower's Normandy campaign than DRAGOON, and might also end the German occupation of the Balkans.

But Eisenhower, who had no major port available to him in Normandy, was eager to have Marseilles and other nearby ports through which supplies, and the numerous divisions still in the USA, could be landed. The US Joint Chiefs of Staff, who regarded the Italian campaign as a sideshow, supported Eisenhower, as did Roosevelt—who, as always, was suspicious of Churchill's ambitions in the Balkans. Eventually Churchill gave way, though at the eleventh hour he was still urging that the basic military tenet of concentration of effort be upheld by landing DRAGOON's forces at Bordeaux.

DRAGOON came under the overall control of Maitland Wilson, Supreme Allied Commander in the Mediterranean, whose deputy, Devers, supervised the operation on his behalf. The initial assault, between Cannes and Hyères, was undertaken by Truscott's 6th Corps of three US divisions (see Map 37). To guard his flanks the French Groupe de Commandos and the American First Special Service Force (seeUSA, 5(f)) landed on his left and an ad hoc Anglo-American division, the First Airborne Task Force, was dropped at Le Muy on the right. The initial assault was followed up by seven French divisions of General de Lattre de Tassigny's 256,000-strong Armée B (renamed First French Army on 19 September) which included troops from the French Expeditionary Corps and substantial forces from France's Armée d'Afrique (see France, 6(b)).

Opposing Patch's Seventh US Army were ten German divisions of General Blaskowitz's Army Group G, of which only three were positioned near the landing beaches, while the Luftwaffe could only muster 200 aircraft against the 2,000 Allied ones gathered on Corsica and Sardinia. Immediately before the landings, the coastline was extensively bombarded by the 5 battleships, 21 cruisers, and 100 destroyers of the Western Naval Task Force under Vice-Admiral Kent Hewitt. In addition to this Task Force, which carried out the landings, aircraft from seven British and two US carriers supplemented those of the Twelfth Tactical Air Force which harassed the Germans throughout the campaign. In total 887 warships and 1,370 landing craft participated in DRAGOON.

The German beach defences and mines were formidable, but the preliminary air attacks and the heavy naval bombardment, and the lack of German manpower, ensured there were few Allied casualties on landing; and, with the Allied armies in northern France on the offensive (see Normandy campaign), Hitler was soon forced to order the withdrawal of his forces in the south. So once ashore and through the defensive crust Patch's task became one of pursuit and entrapment of the retreating Germans. Truscott, emboldened by ULTRA intelligence that no large-scale attack by German forces in Italy was planned against his exposed right flank, struck north-west for Avignon and north towards Sisteron while the French made for Toulon and Marseilles. These two ports had been designated fortresses by Hitler and were heavily defended, but the French, whose troops included Goums and Tirailleurs, fought with great élan and by 28 August both had surrendered. With de Lattre's 2nd Corps now operational on Truscott's eastern flank, his 1st Corps crossed the River Rhône and headed northwards.

By the end of the month the Americans were beyond Valence and Grenoble, though tough resistance by the experienced 11th Panzer Division at Montélimar had allowed a large part of Blaskowitz's Nineteenth Army to escape from the entrapment Patch had planned for it. Lyons fell on 3 September, Besançon on 7 September, and Dijon was liberated on 11 September by the 2nd French Corps and French Forces of the Interior (see FFI). As the 6th Corps drove the Germans back towards their frontier Patch again tried to trap them before they reached the Vosges, but again they escaped his grasp.

From 10 September Truscott's troops began to link up with elements of Patton's Third US Army and on 15 September all DRAGOON forces passed from Wilson's command to Eisen hower's. At the same time they were now designated Sixth Army Group. The Group's air support was the newly formed First Tactical Air Force (12th Tactical Air Command and, from October, the First French Air Force). By the end of September 6th Corps had managed to cross the Moselle, but by now it had outrun its supplies and had, too, run out of steam. Beyond the Moselle lay the forested hills of the Vosges and for the next six weeks 6th Corps managed to move forward only 25 km. (15 mi.), rather less than the 650 km. (400 mi.), it had covered between mid-August and the end of September. The French, too, were immobilized while they replaced some of their Tirailleurs with FFI detachments. However, the remnants of Nineteenth Army were thinly spread along a winter defensive line and when Devers attacked on 13 November de Lattre's 1st Corps drove through the Belfort Gap and reached the Rhine a week later. This feat threatened the Germans' lines of communication and forced their withdrawal, which eased the way forward for a reinforced 6th Corps, now commanded by Maj-General Edward Brooks, and for the 2nd French Corps.

At the height of the Allied crisis that surrounded the German Ardennes offensive, which began on 16 December 1944, two of Devers's divisions were ordered to support Patton's counter-thrust into the southern flank of the German advance, and de Gaulle was warned that Allied forces might have to withdraw from Alsace and Lorraine. The French fiercely opposed abandoning these newly liberated areas to the Germans and vowed to defend Strasbourg themselves if the Americans withdrew from the city. This caused a furore, but Churchill supported de Gaulle. Eventually a compromise was reached, enabling Strasbourg to be defended successfully when, on 7 January 1945, a powerful German attack was launched from north of the city and from the Colmar pocket to the south. The battle raged for four weeks before the German offensive petered out and there then remained only the impediment of the Colmar pocket before Sixth Army Group was able to cross the Rhine and take its part in the battle for Germany.

Despite Churchill's forebodings—fulfilled in that the Germans remained undefeated in Italy until the last week of the war—DRAGOON was a considerable achievement. For the loss of 4,000 French and 2,700 US casualties the Allies had captured 57,000 Germans; and by October the southern French ports were handling over a third of the 1.3 million tons of US supplies which reached Europe that month. Without them the supply crisis that hit the Allied armies that autumn—critical until the Scheldt Estuary battle was won—could have been insurmountable.

Bibliography

Funk, A. L. , Hidden Ally (New York, 1992).
Lattre de Tassigny, J. de , History of the French First Army (London, 1952).